Trick Of The Light
by Funky In Fishnet
Summary: Robert of Huntington, Robin Hood, dreams of times he doesn't remember. They don't feel like Herne's visions either. He's told that Robin of Loxley used to dream too.


_**Disclaimer:** I own nothing._

* * *

 **TRICK OF THE LIGHT**

 _His friends falling, facing Gisbourne with a sword, later Gisbourne being ducked deep in the water – his fury and the others' laughter filling the air. Being sure that he or the Sheriff would die in this fight._

Robert woke, sitting suddenly, his harsh breathing sounding loud in his ears, his hands trembling. Visions. No matter how often he dreamed, his waking always felt like he was being chased. But this time, something was different. His dreams stayed oddly flame-bright. They didn't feel like the riddles Herne so often sent him, visions of what was to come. They weren't images he recognised either, though there was something about them, a quality of memory, as though he **should** recognise them, as though he'd lived them before. But how was that possible? What was Herne trying to tell him?

"Robert?"

Marian had stirred beside him, likely alert from the moment he'd woken. She'd told him before that Robin had often woken from dreams sent by Herne. She'd never hidden memories of her husband and her pain at his passing was always present at his name. And yet she had returned to the forest twice, to lie beside Robert as she had lain beside Robin. Robert often wondered at the depth of her strength and courage.

He also wondered sometimes, quietly to himself, about the place that was now his. He carried another man's sword, lay beside another man's wife, led another man's friends. He fought another man's fight, claiming the same title and was called by the same name.

 _Robert or Robin, what does it matter?_

 _It matters to you._

It still did.

"More visions from Herne?" Marian guessed quietly, trying not to wake the others.

Robert shook his head, the images still not fading behind his eyes. "Visions, yes. But they feel different, like they've already happened."

Marian frowned, "Memories?"

"Nothing I remember. But, yes. That's what they seem."

He lay back down – the dawn was only just appearing across the sky now and Nasir was still on watch. He must have heard Robert and Marian but didn't join them.

Marian lay close, her copper curls gleaming in the new still-dim light. Her eyes were fixed on Robert, worried and puzzled. Her hand was warm in his and her body a welcome weight. Had Robin ever dreamed like this?

Robert closed his eyes.

* * *

 _A man riding away on a horse, a sheaf of arrows on his back, rain falling hard. There'd been soldiers before. They'd seemed so tall. And there'd been huts burning, people running. The man and his horse never returned._

* * *

There was much about living off the land that even now, Robert's hands were still becoming used to, like how to skin and cook the animals they caught for food and clothing. Tuck was happy for assistance and to teach Robert, his manner easy and without mocking about how many servants Robert must have had before to do such tasks. This time though, as Robert attended to a brace of rabbits, Much was sat beside him, stirring a pot of stew over a low fire. Will and John were restringing their bows and arguing about something in the clearing beyond, enough laughter amongst their words not to worry anyone, while Tuck was visiting a village with Marian that had asked for a priest and healer, Nasir shadowing them.

"You're not sleeping right," Much observed suddenly and surprisingly quietly, his eyes dark and sharp as they raised up to meet Robert's startled gaze.

Robert's knife slipped but he didn't cut himself or ruin the rabbit as he might have done once. He set the blade against the bone once more.

"What makes you say that?"

Much poked the spoon hard into the bottom of the stew pot. "I wake up sometimes, when I hear the birds. I saw you waking too."

Much had been the only one to wake when Robert and Isadora had slipped away to Caerleon. He was mocked by Gisbourne and by Will too for his slow wits. Robert saw more the anger in him and pain; it was lot like Will's truthfully, grown from sudden tearing loss. Much had lost his parents too, hadn't he, as well as his brother? He rarely grasped things immediately but he was determined and good with a bow and sword. He'd refused to be left behind when Robert had found him and John.

Robert could still see the young innocent boy that Tuck had told him about, the one who'd stumbled, asked unending questions and who Robin had always been patient with. What did Much see, when he looked at Robert?

"I dream but I don't rest," Robert said at last, quiet enough.

He could have lied. But he'd seen how that had hurt Much before when some of the others had believed it better to keep things from him. Much was younger but he was one of them. He was growing up and hardening. Robert remembered being treated as though his youth meant he was worth little. He was unwilling to do that to Much.

Much's expression pinched with understanding and pain. "Robin always saw things when he slept, saw things before they happened. Used to frighten us, he did, with what he said."

Robert's hands slowed. It was rare that Much talked about his brother. He hadn't seen Robin die but aside from Marian he'd been the last person Robin of Loxley had spoken to before his willing death. The pain was different in Much than it was in Marian. Robert had always left it alone. He'd been an only child (Gisbourne was a thought he continuously pushed aside) and so he didn't know the pain of that loss, the loss of the person who had been Much's guide throughout his life. And here was Robert, sitting in his place. How did Much stand it?

"I don't know what I see," Robert ventured, his voice still quiet. "Sometimes, it's with Herne's voice and guidance. But now, it's like I'm seeing something else, something that doesn't belong to him or me."

Much frowned, his hand still stirring the stew as he thought over Robert's words.

"Hasn't Herne told you?"

"No. He hasn't called me."

"Robin used to get angry with him sometimes, saying he didn't make sense. I could hear him."

Robert dropped the rabbit carcass onto a waiting pile, discarding the bones for later soups and the fur for shoes or for part of a coat or cloak. Maybe Much heard more than everyone thought. Robert reached for another rabbit, the smell of the stew making his stomach rumble.

Later, when he went to find Herne, the cave was empty.

* * *

It was close but Robert had still missed. He notched another arrow to his bow and aimed again. When he loosed it, the shot was closer still but not exact. Robert sighed and fought the urge to throw everything down. He wasn't a child.

There was a footfall behind him, too faintly deliberate to be anyone other than Nasir. If Nasir wanted to go unheard and unseen, he made sure of it. Robert forced himself to take a deep breath and try again.

"Your grip is too tight."

Nasir's voice was quiet but it carried easily. Robert tensed but didn't look back. Instead he adjusted his aim slightly and loosened his grip without a word. A correction wasn't a criticism, not from Nasir. This time, Robert's arrow hit true.

He nodded in thanks. Truthfully, he knew that he had been abrupt and curt these past weeks and found himself unable to voice a reason why. Marian and Much knew and maybe they'd revealed Robert's words to the others. Robert found himself running his mind over his recent dreams, the images that he didn't recognise but felt as though he should, that never came with Herne's voice.

Herne wasn't at the cave whenever Robert approached. And when Herne did appear, on a slope, amongst a copse of trees, it was only for a moment. He imparted words and then he was gone before Robert could say a word. He hadn't abandoned his people, but it felt as though he had left his son. Robert was tense and pained in the face of something that felt like a second such abandonment.

He fired another arrow, then another. Both strikes hit the target. In the following silence, Robert's breathing was loud. He was angry, he couldn't deny that, and he felt lost. The dreams wouldn't stop and he had no answers, no direction from them. What were they?

 _A beautiful white room with pools of water and so much silver. A beautiful maiden, the most beautiful he'd ever seen, and he loved her, more than he'd loved anyone else. She took his hand and nothing else mattered. Then she was screaming and clawing and she wasn't beautiful anymore._

"What do you dream about, Nasir?" Robert asked suddenly, pushing away the dream that had consumed him only two nights before, his fingers plucking at the string of his bow.

There was a heartbeat of silence, then, "I don't dream."

Robert's eyes widened slightly. He'd never known Nasir to lie before but could that really be true? When Robert turned, he could spy only the brief twinkling of Nasir's blades, as he was meant to.

* * *

It was the fourth time Robert had sought Herne in his cave and this time, to his great surprise and rushing relief, Herne was there. He was tending to a fire - no headdress, no fur or antlers, just a man with greying hair and clad in simple well-patched clothes. He looked at Robert for a long moment before returning his gaze to the flames.

"You've been dreaming," he surmised, as Robert drew his boat in and stowed the staff he'd used to guide him there.

Robert nodded, stepping carefully onto dry land, towards Herne and the warmth of the fire. There was so much he needed to ask and he knew that there were only so many words Herne would cast towards him. He remembered Much's story about Robin's anger towards the forest god.

"Are they from you?" he asked at last.

Herne shook his head, his gaze still towards the fire. Robert frowned, worry already rising. A witch, that dream of the white room, images he'd seen too of a man in black robes and implaccable stillness, a knife in his hand, a presence that had chilled Robert and made his heart thunder, who'd made flames appear and destroyed his bow.

"Then who? Who is doing this? Where are they?" he asked in a rush.

Herne looked at him then and there was something different in his gaze, or maybe it was the light from the fire, reflecting off the water. Whatever it was Robert saw, it made his skin feel icy cold despite his place so close to the fire.

"You share his name, his cause, his blessing, driven by the same wind. Why should you not also see what he saw and learn from it?'

* * *

When Robert later stared into the river beyond the cave, dazed and consumed by disbelief, worry and something that _hurt_ , his reflection was solitary only for a moment. Then a figure stood just behind, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a set to his jaw and a gaze that Robert recognised too well. His heart leapt up his throat and he glanced immediately over his shoulder. He was still alone but his reflection wasn't. The pain inside of him only grew, squeezing his breath with it. It was impossible.

Herne had said this was a blessing. Robert felt only strain, haunted weight and desperate pain. What was it he truly saw in his dreams? And saw now also? Or was this a waking dream?

"Robin of Loxley," he murmured, barely loud enough to be heard, not daring to touch the water, to know.

The image stared back, assessing and silent, before forming words of its own.

"You have my sword."

 _the end_


End file.
